Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

AXLR vs Letta

AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Letta's 59.7 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Letta leads on maintenance & community. Both do agent harnesses.

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Which one, for what

AXLR BB

Best for A program or bot that needs one governed execution at a time, with a policy, a budget, a sandbox profile and correlation ids it sets itself and a result object it reads back, on a machine it controls, with the model on OpenRouter, a local server or a native Anthropic or OpenAI key.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 58
  • Schema & documentation, 80 against 70
  • Agent ergonomics, 83 against 67
  • Security & auth, 62 against 35

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

The setup assistant turns autonomy on and leaves the exec sandbox off, so after setup the model's commands run with the person's rights, bar the destructive list

Letta C

Best for Long-lived coding agents and assistants that keep memory and identity across sessions and machines.

Ahead on

  • Maintenance & community, 85 against 79

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

The default permission mode is unrestricted, the renamed bypassPermissions, so tool calls aren't confirmed unless the user picks another mode

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Security & auth AXLR +27

AXLR 62

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other four harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. No product telemetry in the console source (the outbound hosts are openrouter.ai, api.anthropic.com, api.openai.com, a configured local server, api.github.com and github.com for engine downloads, and registry.underpassai.com for the signed catalog index) or in the docs; payload capture is off by default since 9 October 2026, traces omit prompts and credentials, model keys are never given to commands or plugins, and Jev sends requests and answers to TypeSafe only when on, which the setup assistant does when TYPESAFE_API_KEY is set, with a notice on stderr (27). Approval cards, a destructive list that always asks, four work modes, a policy level per execution, a bubblewrap or container sandbox with an enforced egress allow list, and a service that approves nothing but reads. Against that, the setup assistant writes autonomous: true, exec_sandbox is off by default, forged tools run with the person's rights, and the README says the console and worker are not sandboxes (13). Forged tools are refused when a file changes since the forge, a policy forbids calls outside the model, and the docs say MCP tools keep their own side effects, but no prompt-injection guidance was found and MCP results reach the model unmarked (6). The service keeps an event journal, audit records, a receipt with the SHA-256 of every call's arguments and outcome, and correlation ids on every event; the console keeps session records, a redacted app log and /session (14). No SECURITY.md, no security.txt on either host, no advisories, no bug bounty; release checksums and a minisign-signed catalog are integrity, not a programme (2). 27+13+6+14+2 = 62.

Letta 35

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Letta Cloud is the default backend, so agent state and conversations go to Letta's servers, and telemetry is on by default (10 of 30). The default permission mode is unrestricted; standard, acceptEdits and strict are opt-in, and cloud sandboxes exist for remote work (4 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance found for fetched pages or channel messages (5 of 15). Conversation search and git history of memory give an operator a record of what the agent saw and changed (10 of 15). SECURITY.md routes reports to support@letta.com and scopes out the retired server; no security.txt, bounty or certification found (6 of 20). Total 35.

Agent ergonomics AXLR +16

AXLR 83

Harness reading of the framework line, scored on what a program driving it has to supply. Six local tools plus the host's bookkeeping tools; work modes and an execution policy hide the tools a run may not use, axlr_catalog searches the catalog instead of loading it, forged tools keep the request prefix for the prompt cache, and a context cap of 75,000 prompt tokens opens a successor session (20). local_read, local_search and local_list page with offset, next_offset and max_bytes; StreamEvents takes after, max_events (1 to 256) and wait_ms; a budget per execution in seconds, requests, tool calls and dollars; 32 tool calls a turn and max_session_usd (20). The --exec run ends in one result line with a status, the pending call, every call's outcome and the usage, and exits 0, 3 or 1; service errors carry codes an agent can act on; a budget stop says which limit (budget: requests 20 reached) and leaves the session resumable (16). Idempotency-Key on every turn, approval and direct call with cross-transport replay, expected_revision on decisions, expected_sha256 on worker writes, and an interrupted effectful call left uncertain for an operator rather than retried (19). One command runs a task, but the first launch needs an OpenRouter key or a local server, the service needs a CA, a principals file and remote KMP and MADE before a first session, and the only SDK is the Go library (8). 20+20+16+19+8 = 83.

Letta 67

Harness reading. Toolsets switch with /model, skills load per agent, and subagents run in the background (18 of 25). Context is managed through memory blocks, reflection and dreaming (12 of 20). letta -p --output-format json for scripted runs and an App Server for programmatic control (12 of 20). Conversations resume by agent and conversation id, and memory is git-tracked so changes can be reverted (15 of 20). Runs with no account on the local backend, with one SDK language, TypeScript (10 of 15). Total 67.

Reliability AXLR +12

AXLR 70

Read as a local package, as claude-code, goose, opencode and openhands were. Release archives for Linux, macOS and Windows on amd64 and arm64 with a .sha256 beside each, a GHCR image, an OCI Helm chart and source builds with Go 1.26, all stated in the docs; no Homebrew, npm or apt route (20). CI on main runs vet, race tests and a coverage gate above 80 per cent for both modules, with the sandbox tests required under bubblewrap, and the last ten runs on main to 1 November 2026 all passed; the release workflow tests on six native runners (25). 10 open issues, all opened by the founder on 19 and 21 October 2026 as trackers for service work (work modes, plugins, the sandbox setting, cost limits), none from an outside user and none a crash report, 0 open pull requests and about 100 merged; with 0 stars there is nobody else to report, so the handling of outside reports is untested (20). Tags are semver 0.x and the docs date each behaviour change inline ("until 14 October 2026…"), but the 21 releases have empty notes, there is no CHANGELOG.md, and the product contract records one retirement (the seven 1.0 skill definitions on 5 October 2026) without a notice period (5). Pre-1.0, which the README calls an evolving project (0). 20+25+20+5+0 = 70.

Letta 58

Local-software lines, read for the harness. @letta-ai/letta-code on npm with Node.js 22.19 or newer, and PyPI wheels for glibc Linux, macOS 14 and Windows x64 with Python 3.9 or newer stated (20). ci.yml, nightly update smoke tests and Telegram live smoke tests exist, but GitHub's API answered with a rate limit, so run results were unread (15 of 25, unchecked). 332 open issues and pull requests, mostly pull requests; recent bug reports such as recall reading the wrong conversation have no reply yet (15 of 25). 398 tags at 0.34.x with release notes on GitHub, no changelog file, and breaking removals such as AgentFile announced in the README (8 of 15). Pre-1.0 (0). Total 58.

Schema & documentation AXLR +10

AXLR 80

An OpenAPI 3.1 file for the service (15 paths, 23 schemas, mutualTLS security scheme, additionalProperties: false on request bodies), a checked proto for the gRPC service, and the 19 MCP tools built from the same shared schemas (25). No llms.txt on either site (404), and the docs site renders HTML; the Markdown sources are in the repository (5). The product contract tables what each of the four interfaces can and cannot do, the work-mode table states each mode's purpose and tool policy, the transport parity ledger names every verb's arguments and behaviour, and axlr_tools tells the model to look for a tool before forging one (15). Typed inputs throughout, Idempotency-Key 16 to 128 safe ASCII characters, expected_revision a positive integer, policy levels, sandbox profiles and egress values enumerated, budgets as four integers, and the service rejects unknown fields, invalid types and bodies over 4 MiB (14). Examples in every guide, an error shape of code, message and request_id, named codes (409 idempotency_conflict, 400 invalid_cursor, 422 invalid_policy, invalid_budget, sandbox_unavailable, not_ready, invalid_id), a gRPC status mapping, and the worker's five statuses and three exit codes; no single error reference page (14). /v1 routes and an OpenAPI version of 0.1.0 against a 0.15.0 release, and no changelog beyond the dated notes inside the docs (7). 25+5+15+14+14+7 = 80.

Letta 70

Harness reading. docs.letta.com serves llms.txt and a Markdown version of every page, with an applies_to block saying which backend and interface each page covers (10). TypeScript types for the Agent SDK and a documented App Server WebSocket protocol, but no JSON Schema or OpenAPI for the harness (15 of 25). Pages say when to use local or cloud backends, subagents and channels (14 of 20). Permission modes and options are typed in the SDK (12 of 15). Example applications and a remote client reference (11 of 15). Releases most days but no changelog file (8 of 15). Total 70.

Maintenance & community Letta +6

AXLR 79

v0.15.0 on 2026-10-25, with commits on main to 2026-11-01 (30). 21 releases between 4 and 25 October 2026 (20). One maintainer (368 of 399 commits, the rest by two agent accounts), 10 open issues that are his own trackers with no comments, about 100 merged pull requests and no outside report to measure a reply against (15). Not in the MCP registry; the Go module and a proto to generate clients from are the only client code, beside the GHCR image and Helm chart (5). Go 1.26 toolchain pinned, release actions pinned by commit SHA, a go-licenses check that the third-party bundle matches the dependency graph, and CI passing on main (9). 30+20+15+5+9 = 79.

Letta 85

v0.34.42 on 6 November 2026 (30). Dozens of releases in 90 days (20). Pull requests are merged daily; recent issues from users have few replies (15 of 25). npm and PyPI packages and the Agent SDK track the releases (12 of 15). Lock files, CI and nightly smoke tests (8 of 10). Total 85.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAXLRLettaEdge
Reliability16%207058AXLR +12
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28070AXLR +10
Agent ergonomics13%16.28367AXLR +16
Security & auth14%17.56235AXLR +27
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87985Letta +6
Transparency & trust7%8.85555even
Negative events≤1500
TotalBB 70.6/100C 59.7/100

Facts side by side

FactAXLRLetta
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorUnderpass AILetta
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transportsstdio
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0, with a NOTICE naming Tirso García Ibáñez as the copyright holderApache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-252026-11-06
Terms last updatedno document linkedno date given
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno date given
Customer content may train modelsnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot read yetnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot read yetyes
Popularity0 stars3.8k stars, 86k npm/wk, 2.2k PyPI/wk

Verdicts

AXLR

A pre-1.0 Go harness with an unusually complete service contract, mutual TLS with principal roles, required idempotency keys, a policy, budget and sandbox per execution, and a result object a program can read. The console's defaults after setup are autonomy on and no sandbox, the project has one maintainer and no outside users yet, and releases carry no notes.

Letta

Letta's open-source harness gives agents git-tracked memory blocks, skills, subagents and headless JSON runs, with a $0 plan and public per-agent API prices. It starts in the unrestricted permission mode, defaults to Letta Cloud, sends usage telemetry unless LETTA_CODE_TELEM=0 is set, and the V1 API server the comparisons describe is retired.

Before you call either

AXLR

  1. Before the first prompt, set approvals.autonomous to false or run with --approve none, and turn exec_sandbox.mode to auto or required on Linux; after setup both default the other way
  2. Drive a run with axlr-tui --exec --json --policy <file> --budget <file> --sandbox <file> and read only the last result line; exit 3 means a call waits for --decide approve|deny with --session <id>
  3. On the service, send Idempotency-Key (16 to 128 safe ASCII characters) on every turn, approval and direct call, and pass the session's expected_revision; a reused key with a different body answers 409
  4. A local model must return native tool calls (llama.cpp with --jinja, vLLM with --enable-auto-tool-choice); set context_tokens on the entry and OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH for Ollama
  5. Leave TYPESAFE_API_KEY unset unless you want the setup assistant to switch Jev on, which sends requests and final answers to TypeSafe

Letta

  1. Start headless runs with an explicit permission mode such as standard or strict; the default auto-approves tools
  2. Pass --backend local for work that must stay on the machine, since Letta Cloud is the default
  3. Set LETTA_CODE_TELEM=0 in unattended runs if usage events must not be sent
  4. Use letta -p --output-format json for scripted runs and parse the JSON, not the terminal output
  5. Don't plan on the retired V1 REST server or .af AgentFile import; both are gone

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, AXLR or Letta?

AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Letta's 59.7 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Letta leads on maintenance & community.

Are AXLR and Letta open source?

Yes. AXLR is open source (Apache-2.0, with a NOTICE naming Tirso García Ibáñez as the copyright holder). Letta is open source (Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with AXLR or Letta

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